Home
by scimitarblue
Summary: The last few minutes of Data's life, from his point of view. Overwhelmed by memories and guilt, Data collapses in a turbolift, until a voice from his past encourages him to accomplish his final task, and save the ship.


Home

By Chris Stevens

Lieutenant Commander Data stepped quickly through the innards of the USS Enterprise, making his way towards one of the many hull breaches that had been wrenched open in the deadly dance between the Enterprise and the Scimitar. He had requested that Geordi meet him there. Geordi, who had always been a good and faithful friend.

As were they all, all faithful friends. Family was the closest equivalent term in the human English language to what his shipmates meant to him, although other terms would have sufficed. Clan, tribe, kindred, kith and kin...these terms would have sufficed for any android, like himself. But, based on the human affection for the word, he was certain that were the decision placed in the hands of Captain Picard, or Lieutenant Commander LaForge, they would surely have selected the term "family".

Their faces were etched in his cerebral processors, burned into his positronic brain. Each and every one of them. His processor, capable of speeds unreachable by the human brain, was firing faster than, perhaps, it had since the day that Doctor Soong had brought him online, remembering each event, each moment, flashing back to everything he'd ever done, said, and heard. He was content in the knowledge that these memories would not end here - Data had, after all, uploaded the bulk of the information contained in his positronic brain to his quasi-brother, B-4, prior to his departure. This was fortunate...as it would have been inefficient and logical for Data's observations, or recordings of them, at least, of his time aboard the Enterprise to be lost.

The faces were many - the Enterprise-D had possessed the capacity to carry over 1,000 crew and their families, and the Enterprise-E possessed a similar, albeit far more military-natured, capacity. Recalling the names, in many cases, felt like scrolling through a databank, sifting through faces he'd not seen but once or twice, and only in passing. As he recalled those he'd served with, he adjusted the parameters of the search to produce fewer results - the one that stood out the most from the remainder, in the sheer size of the files containing the memories, and the data catalogued surrounding them.

The names that stood out the most were the names of the people he'd served with on the Enterprise, since arriving from Farpoint Station. He remembered all of them fondly. Jean-Luc Picard, for example, whose faith in him had pushed him to excel to otherwise unfathomable levels in his quest to become human. The man who had been, to Data, a source of guidance, and counsel. A father who had carried on in the stead of his late programmer, Doctor Noonien Soong. Such was not a course that Data would have anticipated, boarding for that first time. The odds of such a bond, between two individuals so drastically differential, were astronomically low. Such a turn of events was fascinating, in its own way. There was also Geordi LaForge, with whom Data had worked on many occasions, and whose role in Data's positronic brain had become similar, in many respects, to that of a brother, and William Riker, the man who had regarded him as a "Pinocchio," and a "clown", but who had become a close friend, and a trusted companion. So many others stood out - Counselor Troi, Doctor Crusher, Lieutenant Commander Worf, Wesley, all of them, and many, many more.

As Data stepped into the turbolift, however, he acknowledged that there was still one file remaining.

One file left unopened.

Data was initially apprehensive about opening its contents, for he remembered the results last time had been catastrophic. It was not that the file contained data or information that was harmful, on its own - quite the opposite. Prior to the installation of his emotion chip, the one passed on to him by his late "brother" Lore, Data had recalled this file multiple times daily, peering into it, part by part, in such a manner so detailed that it could only be described as intimate. He had felt, given the nature of their previous relationship, that such a reflection upon her file was only logical, and only right. It was, after all, customary and behaviourally normal for human beings to reflect upon their loved ones regularly, even after...even after a loved one had been lost.

Love was a parameter, prior to the emotion chip, that had been a mystery. It was something that Data could simply not comprehend. It was like trying to explain a rainbow to a man rendered colorblind. Data smirked, for a good quarter of a second, roughly the length of time it took for his processor to reconstruct a comic, simulated reaction from Mister LaForge, who himself was incapable of normal sight, on his use of such a metaphor. When he returned to his previous query, he found himself struck with apprehension and uncertainty, despite how beneficial he knew this file had proven to him in the past.

Prior to his emotion chip's insertion, this was the file that, perhaps more than any other, had influenced him as a member of the Enterprise crew, and as one seeking his own humanity. Yes, according to self-diagnostic. Approximately 443.37% more information had been uploaded from this file into his behavioural and social parameters than from Picard's, the second-highest contribution to his more...human...side.

The lift door hissed shut.

"Deck Five," he commanded, neutrally as ever. There was a millisecond's shudder in his voice as he did so, attempting in this, his last few moments, to determine whether or not the file should be left unopened. It occured to him that if the memories produced the malfunction they previously had, he would be rendered incapacitated, and would be unable to assist the captain, who was aboard the Scimitar, in grave danger. Time was of the essence.

Nevertheless...this file was one that Data, after the day he'd broken down in Soran's lab on the Viridian III mission, had been unable to touch. Not even without his emotion chip. It was a curious anomaly - thoughts associated with love tended to produce reactions of warmth, pleasure, nostalgia, and fantasy, among hundreds of different reactions he'd observed among the crew. Before that day, Data had truly believed, and had accepted it as fact in his positronic brain, that he had loved her. Whether she had loved him or not, he had loved her, and had remembered her.

The memories, though, had almost destroyed him.

On that fateful day, he had just barely flipped the tricorder shut, and had been laughing over at Geordi, following a veritable cavalcade of comedy. His emotion chip was a new experience, and he running it at full capacity, despite the fact that his systems had not yet had sufficient time to adapt. The rush of the laughter, and of the comic images was exhilirating, and it was something that Data had, until that day, never experienced. He had never experienced anything even close. He was giddy, and excited, and full of energy. Naturally, though, this had troubled him, as it produced inconsistencies. Were these not, also, emotions associated with love?  
Love! Immediately, Data's processor, deleting the poor Mister Tricorder joke, rushed through his processor towards the file it wanted, curious to see what this sensation, at long last, would finally feel like. He had thought of her every day for almost seven Terran years - surely, now that the emotion chip had been installed, the experience would have been a reward worth the years in the anticipation!

His laughter had carried on for moments, as his processor initialized and accessed the file. Something went wrong. As Geordi had stood there, beside him, Data's face constricted, as if he were suffering some kind of physical discomfort or pain. Data was incapable of such sensation, but his processor had overloaded. His positronic brain was racing. The images, the flashes, the thrills, and the horrors that passed through his mind were beyond compare.

He was standing over a casket, glancing downward at the shroud that covered her body.

He was sitting in his quarters, putting up a hologram to remember her by.

He was in a courtroom, testifying to the intimate relations that the two had shared. The look of disgust on the faces of several of the presiding officers was most evident.

He was taking his station, back on the bridge, when she glanced in his direction from the Tactical console, her face grim, humorless, and...displeased?

"Data," she spoke, as he observed it all in minute, unflawed detail through his mind's eye, "I'm only going to tell you just once: it never happened."

He was standing on the planet's surface, watching her double over and fall as the life force faded from her body.

He had cried out in Soran's lab, where he and Geordi had been working, and Geordi immediately suspected that his emotion chip had overloaded. Data had been afraid to admit the cause. He couldn't close the file...he couldn't stop the wave of emotions, and memories that had flooded him. The recollection of her touch, the warmth of her kiss, the resonance of her heartbeat, its tempo only off from the pulsing of his hydraulic and chemical nutrient systems by approximately 1/48th of a movement per second. He remembered all of it...and more. He remembered the sight of her, for the weeks that followed the treatment of the Psi 2000 virus, the intoxication that had led them to each other, just prior to her death. He remembered passing her in corridors, and the way that she used to look away. The way she used to watch him, apprehensively, in Ten Forward. He remembered the stories of Turkana IV, and her wretched life on the planet's surface, until she'd escaped at the age of 15. He remembered her tale about the planet's gangs, and about how she'd had to learn to adapt, and to survive.

It had not been what he had predicted. He could feel his emotions twisting...turning. He felt, more than anything else...cheated. For approximately 6 years, 4 months, 24 days, 2 hours, 19 minutes, and three seconds, one of the primary purposes to claiming human emotion was that he wished to understand better the way she had felt about him, and the way that he had felt about her. He wanted to feel for her. He had expected...no, he had wanted something warm, shining, perfect, and precious - something that would merit, perhaps, even further reflection and recollection within his positronic brain. What he had received, instead, was a pain the likes of which he'd never experienced. It was tearing him apart, from the inside out.

Before he'd had a chance to shut down, and carry out a proper reboot - as his systems were, after all, in a complete and obvious state of malfunction - Soran had appeared. And before Data could react, or shut down the recollection that was shredding apart his positronic brain, shots were fired. Instinctively, his already-overloaded emotion chip interfering with his judgement, Data hid. Soran found him. Soran pointed his weapon downward, training it on the android.

At that instant, the vision of the funeral and of the shroud wrapped over a body taken far too soon from her rightful place on the Enterprise leaped to the forefront of his mind. This time, though, he was the one in the casket. He was alone. Everything was dark, and silent. Everything was...silent. What was death? For one's program to be deactivated was not something unusual. But...what would it be like, not to be reactivated again? Would it hurt? Would it be gentle? Would it be quick? Slow? Would it even feel at all?

And then a thought that wracked his circuits produced itself, for the first time. Where did Tasha go? What happened to her, after she ceased to function? What must that last, final deactivation have been like for her? Guilt coursed through him, as if through veins, and he watched her fall, over, and over, and over again. Each time, replaying it in his mind, and realizing that he could have moved. He could have done something. He could have saved her! And, damnit, it might have put the rest of the Away Team at risk, and he would have been in direct violation of Soong's Laws and of his primary programming, but she was more important! He wanted her more! He wanted her back!

And then, hopelessness sank in as he realized for the first time, with his emotion chip functioning, that she wasn't coming back. Grief.

Data stood in the turbolift, waiting for the lift to stop, as the ship rocked under impacts from disruptors and plasma torpedoes. The Scimitar fired, still charging its Thaleron weapon. Data began to run a complex series of calculations. His emotion chip had taken a great deal of time to install properly, and adapt to his positronic brain. His brain, likewise, had taken time to adapt to the new hardware. His ability to contain, to focus, and to control his emotions had made excellent progress. He estimated that there was only now an 18.3% chance that re-opening the file would incapacitate him to such an extent that he would be unable to complete this, his final mission. If that happened, he would be letting Picard die, and he would be letting everyone else on the ship die, as well. Why was it so important that this one, last file be reopened?

Data sighed, and closed his eyes, in silent reflection.

It had been too long.

He hadn't even glanced at this file in years. He'd put away the holoimage he'd kept of her in a desk, pretending that it simply didn't exist. Several of the portraits he'd created of her, while attempting to both better understand the human concept of aesthetics and while attempting to understand artistic properties of romance, had been sent either to a war museum, or to Ishara, her sister. Sonnets that he had written as both a summary exercise in Shakespearean works, suggested to him initially by Captain Picard, and that he had written with her as the sole subject had been encrypted, encoded, and buried so far into his processor that it would take a solid month of calculation to remove the encryption codes.

He had sealed her file, and hadn't opened it since. As if he were shutting himself out...or shutting her in. In either case, it was illogical, and it was wrong. His emotion chip felt grief at having left the file untouched for such a length of time, and felt shame for...for what it perceived as his abandonment of her. He could already feel his processor buzzing. The risk factor was now 25.3%. To an engineer, to a captain, or, certainly, to an android, this would have been a certainly unnecessary risk, given what was at stake. Any risk was too great. B-4 possessed the files, and would open them in time. The story would not be lost.

"But..." Data spoke aloud, as if asserting the fact to himself, his emotion overriding his positronic brain, "I want this. I want to see this...myself. I want to remember." Such an override raised the risk factor again, significantly, to approximately 41.2%.

He was halfway between his initial point of departure and the part of the ship where he would take his one, giant leap. The turbolift would stop shortly. He wasn't going to have another chance.

He sighed, and clenched his fists, bracing for what was to come next.  
"Access stored local memory files on Lieutenant Natasha Yar," he spoke, less than steadily, "Decryption sequence Data-Six-Romeo-Juliet." An aptly named decryption sequence...for a file that, he was certain, would prove to be every bit as tragic as the play itself. He felt his positronic brain kick in, whispers of the memories starting to course through his mind.

He dropped to his knees, and cried out, his emotion chip beginning to overload once more. His positronic brain beckoned for him to shut down his memory banks and reboot, as the risk factor of irreparable damage and of incapacitation had increased to 60.3%. Now, there were greater odds that he would go completely offline than there were if the memories were shut down, and he were to simply carry out his mission.

"Abort," his internal systems cautioned, "Processor risk greater than fifty percent."

"No!" he spat, still on his knees, as the turbolift kept steadily on its course. The room seemed to be spinning, as the images started right back up where they'd left off. The casket. The surface. The bridge. Her quarters. She was kissing him. She was lying, prone and cold, in a torpedo, awaiting a burial in space. She was falling to her death. She was glaring at him, coldly, from her station.

Had it not been, indeed, what she desired? Was the intimacy that they had shared so dismissible? Was the bond that Data had forged with her that day a thing so easily cast aside? Was he...not desirable?

Why could he not have saved her? Why could he not have stopped her from dying? He could move faster than any normal being, think faster than any human, he was capable of feats impossible to any but those like him: androids. If anyone could have saved her, it was him! He could have saved her, and he failed to! He had broken the Laws, by failing to act in such a capacity, but even more than this, he had failed her!

The hologram of her was playing, bidding goodbyes to the crew. The goodbye was tearful - Counselor Troi wept profusely. And yet, despite the closeness that he had felt towards her...he had been incapable of shedding a single tear.

He felt his processor spiralling, failing, careening wildly out of control. The guilt, the shame, the rejection, the pain, it all flooded his memory banks, his processors, his core.  
Risk factor was now 89.6 percent. The memories, though, were beyond shutdown...beyond reboot. If he aborted the process now, the damage would still incapacitate him. He had only, now, to endure these emotions, as the lift sped down, down down, into darkness around him. Everything went silent, and everything went still.

The humming of the turbolift took on a new tone.

"Fascinating," he whispered.

Data opened his eyes, glancing forward. He was on the floor of a turbolift...but not the turbolift of the Sovereign-Class Enterprise. It was the Galaxy-Class starship, the Enterprise-D; the blue glow of the lift was unmistakeable, as was its gentle hum. He was not alone. From the ground, he could see two legs in front of him, wearing standard-issue black Starfleet uniform pants, and a pair of well-shined boots. Probability was approximately 75.4%, based on the dimensions, construction, and proportions of the legs from the limited amount that he could see, that the turbolift's other occupant was female. Judging from the well-shined boots, probably an officer. Data felt embarrassed, and scrambled to -

Embarrassed? Felt? His emotions chip was engaged, and active! But...he'd hardly ever had the chip engaged, while on this specific ship. Was this some sort of reconstruction? Some sort of corrupt, tampered memory? Was this the result of the unsafe link he had initiated, transmitting his data to B-4's consciousness? Or...

...and then he remembered. He was still in a turbolift. Somewhere else. The Enterprise-E. The Enterprise-D had been destroyed. So...what was he doing here, on a Galaxy-Class starship? As he glanced over himself, taking note of the bright mustard-colored uniform, he also couldn't help but wonder why he was in an earlier variation of it.

"I hope you're not just going to stand there all day," a familiar, serious, and sad voice spoke, "You've got a lot of work to do, Commander."

Data glanced up, his insides still wrenching from the memories that coursed through his processor, and...something broke further, when he saw her. His optic ducts started to leak. He smiled, like he'd suddenly found a part of himself that he'd left behind, a long, long time ago.

"You...you are..." he stammered, swallowing nervously, not knowing what to say, "You are alive!" His grin was wide, and he found himself feeling...ecstatic. He scrambled up to his feet, and stared for a moment, glancing over her, as if trying to make certain that his eyes weren't deceiving him. He moved closer, raising his hands to her warm, soft cheeks. The cheeks that felt just the way he remembered.

Exactly the way he remembered...too exactly.

All of a sudden, he took a step back, his face darkening. Fear was the only discernable of the many expressions on his face.

"What's wrong?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Don't you ask me what's wrong!" Data spat, his positronic brain overheating, his circuits fusing. One, no, two verbal contractions. His processor, his vocal filters, and his logic circuits must have been completely overloaded. Or, if nothing else, offline. Maybe he was offline. "You know what's wrong! This room, this conversation, none of it is real! This is a construction! You're a construction!"

She crossed her arms, and frowned, stepping to the other side of the lift, pressing her back against it.

"Look who's talking. But...you're right," she snapped, "I am. A subroutine created from extrapolation of your existing memories, data retrieved from personnel files, and observations from your shipmates' statements and behaviours around me. I am a construct. But I'm a damned good construct. And I'm worried about you."

Data glanced around, frantically. He had to get back to the Enterprise! His Enterprise! He had to get back before the Scimitar destroyed everything! He had to save the Captain! There was too much! Too much for him to do! This wasn't real! This wasn't right! This was all a lie...he should have known better than to think, for even a moment, that she was still alive. And his joy this time had lasted 11.54 seconds...which, for an android, was more than eternity. He felt...cheated. Again.

"You're worried? About me?" he scoffed, "Well, Tasha, it's not like you have reason to! I killed you, remember?"

"Armus killed me," she corrected, "Check your memory banks again, Data. I think you're delusional."

"I might as well have killed you!" he snapped, turning away from her, "I couldn't stop him! I watched! I watched it all! And I stood there, while everybody else was bawling their goddamned eyes out, and I couldn't feel a thing! Why the hell should you worry about me? It's certainly not like you owe it to me!"

More contractions in his speech. Estimated risk of incapacitation was 96.4%, estimated to occur within the next 60 seconds. He closed his eyes, and tried to shut this all out. She was a subroutine. This was a lie. This was all just a...just a dream. A bad, bad dream. And he wasn't going to wake up from it.

"Data," she spoke, moving closer, standing in the center of the lift again, "Data, you're my friend. You did everything you could have done. I knew what I was signing up for."

"You're a liar and a fake," he grumbled, crossing his arms like a scolded child, waiting for his systems failure to kick in and end his life. "You didn't know. You didn't know it would be like that. And I could have done something! I should have!" He slammed a fist against the inside of the turbolift, punching through the wall, and knocking out a row of the light, white-blue lights inside. "Besides...'it never happened', right? If it was so easy to throw me out of your life before, why don't you just throw me out again now?"

She paused, for a moment, struck and a little bit hurt by his words. She bit down on her lip, and approached, laying a hand on his shoulder. He was tempted, for a moment, to brush it off, but...he couldn't bring himself to. Not when he'd missed that touch so much.

"Data," she whispered, "I'm a subroutine. A program. Part of your consciousness that...that grew, within the file that you created for me, over the years. I don't...I don't know what Tasha Yar thought, when she died. But...I know that she considered you a friend. And more." She bit down on her lip again, nervously, and spoke. "Data, stardate 40302.4, two days after we...after we were intimate, you walked by me in a corridor. You stopped actively recording, thinking the details irrelevant. Your passive sensors picked up that Tasha Yar turned, watching you leave, for several seconds after you'd disappeared from sight. Stardate 40441.6, Tasha Yar was staring at you in Ten Forward, as she ate breakfast with Counselor Troi. You had come to the room to dine with Commander Riker to discuss spatial disturbances, and when you saw Tasha's reaction, you left, fearing that you had offended her again. Passive scans as you left indicated a biochemical change in her consistent with despair, and rejection."  
"Stop!" he snapped, his hands bracing against the wall of the lift, "Just stop talking!"

"No," she snapped, angrily, "You think you've got it rough? I've been sitting in your shiny metal head, waiting - God, how many years? - for you to smarten up and take the hint. And, damnit, Data, there were a lot of hints. A lot of hints! And I figured with a brain as well-built as yours, you might have caught on just a little sooner!"

Data stopped, cold, at her words, realizing that he may not have...sufficiently...examined his passive logs. The passive logs tended to be irrelevant, temporary memory files. Superfluous data, for the most part. Could...he really have missed that much...?

"Stardate 40493.5," she snapped, "You play a musical concert with Ensigns Lynch and Rayner. Passive sensors indicate elevated pulse in an occupant who was watching from behind the door to Ten Forward. Your passive sensors are pretty good, Mister Data. They even picked up on a smile. It's too bad you did such a good job ignoring them!"

Data paused, wanting to go offline, his shame and guilt greater than ever. Now...now, he knew. She had cared for him. Even if only as a friend...a good friend...Tasha Yar had cared about him. And...he'd let her down. He'd let her die.  
"Leave me," he whispered, rasping, "I...I believe I have done sufficient harm already."

Her hand still resting on his shoulder, she moved closer, glancing at him from the side.

"Listen to me. You have to let go. You have to stop blaming yourself. You...you have to keep going. For both of us."

Data turned, facing her, his jaw steely and unmoving. His face was tight in a grimace. His emotion chip was burning up inside of him.

"No!" he spat, still on overload, "I cannot...I cannot 'let go'. I cannot let go of...of..." His words trailed off, and his eyes shut tightly as he reached out, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into an embrace, his head on her shoulder. Never before had an android, with emotion chip or otherwise, felt this kind of grief...this kind of sadness. It had stayed in his positronic brain for six whole years...touched, every day, but never understood without the capacity for emotion. Human emotion. He cried, clutching her as if for dear life, and she warmly held him back, gently running a hand along his back, to comfort him.

"It's okay," she whispered, "Data, it's okay..."

"No!" he wept, "No, it is not okay. I cannot bring you back. I do not know where you are, anymore, and I cannot bring you back. I want you to come back! I...I never wanted to...lose you..."

She leaned up, at the last words, and kissed him, warmly, on the lips. The touch was like a rain, washing away all of the grief, the anguish, the shame, and the hurt that he had felt since the day he'd activated his emotion chip. He kissed her back, passionately, as if he never, ever wanted this moment to end.

Which, was, of course, only logical - for he truly never, in actuality, wanted this to end at all.

85...74...46...21...0. The risk factor passed away with every second of their tender, belated embrace, and Data felt...comfort. He felt alive. He felt like a new man...like someone who'd carried the weight of the world on his shoulders for far too long, and was now free. Yet, at the same time...he felt more in love with Tasha Yar than he ever had before.

He wanted to stay here with her. Not here, in the lift, but here, on the Enterprise. He wanted to do it all over again. He wanted to come home to her, after his bridge shifts. He wanted to show her the sonnets, and the portraits, and divulge to her all of the thoughts and ideas she'd inspired in him, while he'd been without her those six years. He wanted to hold her hand. He wanted to take her out somewhere for dinner. He wanted to make her smile, and laugh, and feel good. He wanted to make her forget all the horrible memories of Turkana IV. He wanted to fill her life with new ones, happy ones, memories that she'd cherish forever. Memories that they could make together. He wanted to kiss her beneath the moonlight of a world...any world. Somewhere nice, and warm, perhaps. On a summer's eve.

He wanted to be with her the way that Riker was with Troi, or the way that Worf had been with Dax. He wanted to be with her forever, he wanted to share time with her. He wanted to recalibrate his physical integrity and parameters to degrade, so that he could know the full experience of growing old, with her. Children? What would it be like? Was it even possible? Who knew? But...this was magical. This was unnaturally, impossibly perfect. This was what he'd hoped for for years...this was what he'd longed for for years.

This was love.

She was the one to break off the embrace, glancing up at him with glad eyes, her short blond hair shining like the sun.

"Data," she whispered, "Data, you have to go now."

The words were a shock to him, and he glanced back, blankly.

"Go? But...but I have waited...why must I leave so soon?  
"I'll come find you...I promise," she whispered, "But...you have to go now."

Data barely opened his mouth to protest when the turbolift turned a blinding white.

This time, the floor of the turbolift, as he opened his eyes, looked a great deal more like that of a Sovereign-class vessel. A damaged vessel. A vessel under fire. Data stood, not even bothering to brush himself off, and stepped forward, far more confident and ready than he'd been a moment ago. He felt ready. The grief over Tasha's death had haunted him for years...she had, inadvertently, become his primary programming. But...she had said that she would find him. She would come for him. Data believed her. Trusted her. Loved her.

There...there was Geordi, at the end of the corridor. And the hull breach with, behind a forcefield, a full view of open space and the Scimitar beyond.

It was time.

When woke in the turbolift, it was as if no time had passed at all. She was still standing there, smiling back at him, brushing her hand softly against his cheek. The last thing he remembered was firing his phaser, at the Thaleron generator on the Scimitar's main bridge. He'd beamed Captain Picard out just in the nick of time. He'd succeeded.

So...why was he here? Why was he back here, with her? It didn't make sense...it didn't make any sense at all. Something wasn't right.

"Tasha?" he spoke, softly, "Why are you...here?" He gazed into her eyes, stepping closer, and holding onto her hand, still while she pressed it tenderly against his cheek.

"I told you I'd come find you," she said, "I hope you didn't think I was making that up."

Data paused, still not completely understanding. This did not compute at all. He should be offline...the world should be dark. This should all be gone. He should no longer be conscious, or breathing, or on the Enterprise-D, with her.

"Tasha," he whispered, "It...it's not real. It can't be. It...it's impossible." She was only a subroutine, a program within his core consciousness. She shouldn't be active right now, either. This was inexplicable...this was unreasonable...

...but it was not unwelcome.

She kissed him, tenderly, one more time, and then broke the kiss, smiling at him, and moving towards the door of the lift.

"It felt pretty real to me," she smiled.

The lift door opened, giving way to a bright, shining forest landscape. There were mountains, and rocks, and hills, and every manner of terrain and creature within imaginable. Data's mouth opened slightly, in shock, and as Tasha stepped out of the lift, he stepped into the doorway, glancing around at it all.

"Are you coming?" Tasha called back to him, teasingly smiling, as she moved towards a little lake nearby. "I'm not going to explore this whole area myself, Mister Data."

Data just stood, in awe, glancing at the landscape. The majesty of it all, the beauty of it all. It was pristine, pure, untouched by technology...human. The wind on his skin was invigorating -

- his human skin.

He glanced down at the pink flesh covering his hands, and reached up, feeling it on his face. He smiled, and laughed, and whooped loudly, feeling higher than he'd ever thought possible.

"Data!" Tasha called out, at the lake's edge, treading along the shore next to the cool blue water, "Data, come on!"

"Alright!" he shouted back, "One moment, please!"

He glanced up, into the sky, up past the clouds to the sun. He beamed, looking upon it all with human eyes...his human eyes. He glanced back down, watching Tasha, as she walked along the shoreline. He stopped, for a good, long while, and watched her with happy tears clouding his vision. She was so beautiful...so perfect...her hair shone like gold, and her smile filled him with a joy that as an android, he'd have never been able to describe.

He loved her.

This was all so impossible...but yet, now...everything was right.

"Blue skies, smiling at me," he sang softly, as he made his way out of the turbolift doorway, down one of the little grassy hills to where she was waiting for him, "Nothing but blue skies do I see..."


End file.
